Harvard: Urine on Gay Books Was Accident, Not Hate Crime

(Dec. 14) -- Those gay-themed books that were soaked with urine at a Harvard College library were not a hate crime after all, the school says, but a simple accident caused by a staffer who spilled a bottle of liquid waste on 36 tomes.

Why a bottle of urine was sitting on a library shelf in the first place has yet to be explained.

"This incident was initially reported as vandalism and characterized as a hate crime," Evelynn Hammonds, dean of Harvard College, wrote Monday on the university's website. "We have learned this morning that the books, while indeed damaged, were damaged by our own library personnel accidentally spilling a bottle of what was reported to be urine that had been left on the shelf.

"I believe this is an important new fact in the investigation and warrants my sharing it with you immediately."

The prestigious college's announcement last week that vandals had destroyed three dozen gay and lesbian books by dousing them with urine created a stir on the Internet, with blog site Gawker weighing in with the headline "Homophobic Pee Vandal Haunts Harvard."

Gay rights groups expressed concern. "At the time it was definitely shocking because it was presented to me as an act of vandalism," senior Marco Chan, co-chairman of the Harvard Queer Students and Allies, told the Boston Herald. "Now I feel much more relieved."

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The incident occurred in November but wasn't reported to the Harvard University Police Department until last week. Hammonds said it was initially believed to be a prank. Investigators determined a librarian had knocked over the bottle by accident.

But Chan, 22, told campus newspaper The Harvard Crimson that he still had questions about the whole mess.

"Why was there a bottle of urine on the shelf?" he asked. "Why did it take two weeks for the library or HUPD to figure out that this was just an accident? Did someone suddenly come forward?"